Deep in my mind
by Echante
Summary: Fifteen years ago you were proposed to by Mark Sloan. Maddison... some Addek.


**Deep in My Mind**

_I'm secure with doing fine; Going to see the light before I die; Before I lie in an empty space; And the darkness comes and I've been telling my soul and; Me and myself, we turn around we're getting old; The lightning, passion, foolish emotions; And the bruises and the beauty of this moment and I feel it; I feel like I can see this world inside of me; I tell you even though, its getting easier to breathe..._

Fifteen years ago you were proposed to by Mark Sloan. Fifteen years ago, you flipped out, told him you thought of him as nothing more than a fling and then glared at a ring that would symbolize a marriage that neither of you would be faithful to. Fifteen years ago, you contemplated what it would feel like to say 'yes' and spend the rest of your life with manwhore Mark Sloan. And all those years ago, it still scared the shit out of you. But you were scared because you could actually see it.

Fourteen years ago Derek Sheppard introduced you to his best friend and although throughout the day the inevitable stirrings had risen in your stomach, you mistook prophetic powers for food poisoning and ignored all the signs. When he asks the two of you how long you'd been dating, you were afraid to look into his eyes. When Derek tells him, his heart glares at yours, accusingly, damning the overlap.

At age 34, nine years into your lifelong marriage to Derek Sheppard you walked into Mark Sloan's office, closed the blinds, and then pulled off your top, slowly, seductively. For the first time in your life, you'd seen_ scared_ on the infamous face of Dr. Sloan. He sat paralyzed as you locked eyes and deliberately shrugged out of your skirt, swaying your hips, imagining you were something out of a porno film. You can finally breathe when he reaches a hand out to touch you. You can finally laugh when he pulls you to his lap.

At age 34 and 364 days, or the eve of your 35th birthday, you strolled hand in hand through Central Park, your bright engagement ring deflecting light along with its adjoined marriage band. The hand gripping yours wasn't your promised mate. He acts like it though.

You'd wrinkled your nose because of some smell or another, and he had laughed and called you cute, and offered to buy you ice cream to over-power the smell. You laughed at his insistence that all of the world's problems could be solved through the cold sugary substance, but you smiled softly and acquiesced because in that moment Mark Sloan looked the most _innocent _Mark Sloan can ever look and you'd liked it.

At age 35, two weeks after your birthday, you had seen Mark Sloan jealous for the first time in your life. Somehow, it turned you on more than you could imagine. He trailed behind you, tensing every time you talked to your husband, always first to ask you to dance, always there to offer you a drink, or to take your purse, etc. You'd teased him mercilessly, at the end of the night, you followed your husband out of the door, and giggled as he lead you forward. Really it was cruel, Mark had been a wreck as you bid farewell to the organizers of the ball and begun getting into a cab. But just as he was preparing to drive away, you turned your back and fake paged Derek, causing him to jump out of the already moving cab, and you to hand the guy a twenty and run in Mark's direction. You pinned him to a wall and your lips meshed again and again and again.

On Mark Sloan's 36th birthday, you'd gotten lazy. It had been storming and the two of you had been sitting naked on your bed, laughing as he blew into your belly button and licked circles into your skin when Derek walked in. He tainted the day for you. You still kind of hate him for it.

Half a year before you turn 37, you aborted a baby, found Mark cheating on you again, and booked airplane tickets towards your ex-husband.

You found him in Seattle and contested his current relationship with a woman that should probably be your daughter instead of your husband's lover. You pissed all over him and marked your territory viciously. She was terrified of you.

The two of you enter counseling at your request, and for the first time in your life, someone actually asked you the question of, "How do you feel?" when you weren't physically sick. You felt like screaming, 'how the hell do you think I feel? I just cheated on my husband with his fucking best friend who I used to and may be again in love with, and I am on the brink of getting a fucking divorce!'You felt like decking the therapist then and there.

It takes work and arguments and endless silences, but eventually the two of you are repaired to a functional amount. You fall back into the same patterns, you smile more, you laugh more, the sex isn't miserable, albeit lacking passion, but there wasn't much to speak of pre-deterioration.

You've made it, you've saved the sacred marriage, you'd conquered the unconquerable, and you've avoided the statistic. You become the 'golden couple' in Seattle as you'd once been in New York; you were the envy of the world, the light of the hospital. Richard sent the two of you to functions, interns gossiped about the goings on of your social life. They all exclaim with you as your belly swells and you begin growing larger. But there are days when you catch Derek vacant and away in a farther land, there are days when you doubt he's in it. There are days when he's the love of your life; there are days when you absolutely hate him.

You've been having this recurring dream, but you always wake up and have trouble remembering it, but on the day your baby miscarriages, it comes back with blinding clarity. And he's there, the man of your dreams, he's on his knees, and he's asking and this time, no matter how hard you try, every answer you utter is yes. Every word has the allusion of agreement. Every noise is his for the taking.

So for the second time in your life you book a transnational flight. But this time, you're headed for the opposite direction.


End file.
